THE PINK HOUSE IN FLOWER TOWN: September 20, 2010

My last few moments in Faripiti

My last few moments in Faripiti

Dear Family,

Taaroa was baptised and confirmed a member of the Church this weekend . . . .but I wasn't there.  I was transferred  Friday afternoon at 2:30ish after President had called me at 10ish in the morning.   I  was supposed to confirm Taaroa,. an amazing opportunity missed, but I guess there is more than one side to the Lord's work, and that's being willing to move around a lot.

I've been transferred to the beautiful, beautiful sector of Hitia and Tiare. President drove me down and gave me a super awesome tour of Tahiti on the way.  He knows a lot.   Tiare means flower in Tahitian and we live in a pink house.  A little gay I know, but the house is the most amazing house in the world.   We live literally on the beach and the house is super high quality, which is rare here in Tahiti.  I can't really describe it, so I will take lots of pictures.  All I can say is that the entire inside of the house is pink:  the walls,  the table,  the chairs--- everything.

The pink house in Flower Town

On the beach

View from our pink house

The neighbors are also super awesome.  Sophie, the wife of the guy that rents out our house to us (He has 3 houses with different color schemes that he rents out), insisted that we take her phone 'cause ours got lost in the transfer.   Would you give 2 random white guys your cell phone for who knows how long?   I think not.

 I am now with Elder Oldroyd.  He has been out for 3 more months than me and is from Utah.   The day after my transfer we had a surprise visit from our Bishop who told us that we had a baptism interview which we didn't know about.  (It seems that Elder Oldroyd's companion wasn't very communicative.)   After we painfully got the interview set up and in turn finished,  the Bishop drove us back to the chapel and said that it was time for the baptism. Again, we were super surprised.   So I guess I had my first baptism.   It came very suddenly and unexpected.  

 This morning we hiked to these three waterfalls and it was awesome.   Also, from our beach you can see this island out in the middle of the ocean with a single tree on it.  I will take lots of pictures.   It is super beautiful here.  Cool,

Love Y'all,

Love Elder Cosby

 3 Waterfalls Hike.  My first P-day in Hitiaa  Blue shirt is my super cool neighbor Rukrii, then  Elder Oldroyd

 Me and Elder Oldroyd

September 13, 2010: I ALMOST TAHITIAN -------------------------------IT IS AMAZING TO SEE THE GOSPEL TOUCH PEOPLE'S LIVES

Elder Atiu, Elder Cosby, Elder Punu

Dear Family, 
Me and Elder Punu got a new companion, Elder Atiu, this week. He is 5 foot almost nothing and a professional fighter from Bora Bora.  He has a tatoo of 3 dolphins on his back.   If  I haven't told you yet about 2/3 of the missionaries here are from here in Tahiti. I can't even imagine how hard that would be. It would be like me serving in Flower Mound and the furththest away I could get was Lewisville.  We see Elder Punu's Dad all the time driving around town and we just wave and somtimes we even see his girlfriend.  He always says in English "not good, that is my gorgeous."   Everyone here knows each other from either school or is family.


 I have a super awesome tan now.   I am tan from just above my elbows and halfway above my neck.  I'm eating poo fish and becoming brown.  I almost Tahitian.

                                        Elder Punu, Anna, Taaroa, and me.  Taaroa is getting baptized.


 It is amazing to see the gospel touch peoples lives.  Yesterday we taught Taaroa's adopted mother about repentance and at the end she bore her testomony and thanked us for helping her change.  Before she was against his baptism.   By the way, his baptism is set for this Saturday.
Thanks all 

(Left to Right): Elder Pikette (assistant), Me, Elder Delezer (assistant and I love him a lot), Elder Villierm  (I like him a lot), Elder Crump (MTC with me), Elder Punu (my companion, I like him a lot), Elder Childs (transferred just after this photo.  I love him.  An awesome missionary.)
Love Y'all,
Love Elder Cosby

IT WAS THE BEST, IT WAS THE WORST: Sept. 6, 2010

Me Studying

Dear All,
     The only thing in our fridge is cake, literally. and it is full.   Just cake.   Somtimes I eat cake for breakfast.  Don't make fun of me if I am huge when I get back.  There is this one family that keeps on giving us these little nasty cakes, but me and Elder Punu found a better way to use them than eating them.  The other morning there was a rooster just outside that kept on interrupting our companion study.  Elder Punu grabbed one of those cakes and stood on our little balcony thing and waited.  Just as the beast reared back its ugly head and puffed out its chest to release its work-of-the-Lord-interrupting-cry (I now know  know why roosters are so loud, they use their entire body to scream),  Elder Punu launched the cake, and because the rooster was using all of its energy to ruin our study, it wasn't able to move and dodge the cake and got hit square in the chest. Unfortunately, he didn't die, but at least he stopped yelling.  (By the way, if you didn't know chickens don't crow when the sun rises, they crow starting at about 3 a.m.)

Taaroa

  


This week was kind of rough.  We had 8 cancelled lessons and 3 investigators tell us they didn't think they could continue taking the lessons. But on the other hand, we had a lot of sucess also.  One of our investigators, Taaroa, (from my candlelight FHE family) stopped cold turkey drinking, smoking,  coffee when we invited him to.  He is super funny.  When we come over to teach Taaroa he always dresses up, but one time this week we came for a surprise visit and he was just in his swim trunks like everyone always is, so he got this goofy poncho dress thing with lace and all so I exerted much of my power during that lesson not to laugh. I wish you guys could come and see Taaroa so you could know what I was talking about.  Anyways at the end of the lesson Taaroa asked us to close our eyes and he sang us a song about the gospel that he composed himself.  It was an amazing experience.   He sang about the Plan of Salvation and the Book of Mormon.  Also the next day we did another Family Home Evening for his family and he bore his testimony.  It was nice to hear someone bear testimony after a week of people rejecting the gospel.  I super love my mission.    It  is awesome.

Love, Elder Cosby

FAFARU AND GOING UP A MOUNTAIN: August 30, 2010

A family home evening with members (the one where I ate Fafaru)

Dear Family,

Last Monday me and Elder Punu taught a Family Home Evening lesson and after the lesson they fed us.   As the dinner was being placed on the table and we were talking to a Brother it began to smell like someone had terrible gas or something of that nature.  I thought maybe the smell would pass but it never did.  And then Nora opened the bucket of Fafaru and I figured out where the smell was coming from.  She told me that if I didn't eat fafaru I didn't come to Tahiti after I told her that if you come to Texas you have to stay on the bull for 30 seconds.  I served myself some fafaru. I kept on searching for the smallest piece,  but as I searched in the big plastic bucket,  I kept on pulling out bigger and bigger pieces, so I gave up.  To make things worse, you eat fafaru with your hands, so my hands smelt like poo as I was eating my other food.  So everything tasted like fafaru.   I couldn't finish it,  so at a well planned moment,  Elder Punu saved me and ate the rest of it for me.  I don't know which was worse, the cockroach in my mouth or the fafaru.  Basically fafaru is rotten fish if you want to know.  


The work is going great here.  The other day Elder Punu said, "We gotta go up this mountain.  I don't know why." Going up a mountain is usually not my favorite thing but we did it anyway.   We stopped next to an elementary school and Elder Punu said we need to wait here,  so we waited for almost 30 minutes just sitting there.  Then a couple walked by and told us that they were former investigators and had moved from Moorea a few years ago and had been looking for the missionaries.  We talked to them for a while and went on our way. The spirit is here in Tahiti that's for sure.

District Meeting

Carlson and Alvarez from Rurutu came and stayed with us for Zone Meeting

Zone meeting

I Love Yall
 Love, Elder Cosby

THE MOST INCREDIBLE VIEW IN THE WORLD: August 23, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was good. We ate at this house with the most incredible view in the world. 

This week we gave a blessing to a very old woman in the hospital.  We had to wear gloves and aprons and masks and things.  It was awesome.  We also ate at this house where we had to hike up the side of this mountain at night and jump over stuff and fight off dogs at every corner.  It was like a haunted house. 


 Here in Tahiti they have the best sandwhiches ever.  They are sandwhiches with steak and fries in them and barbeque sauce.  I really like them.   Also, our investigator Christopher returned to France.  It was sad. Love Y'all. 
Love,
Elder Cosby

HOUSE ON STILTS, INVESTIGATOR FROM FRANCE, & COCKROACHES!: August 16, 2010

Dear Family,

I have never eaten so much meat in my life.  All we eat here is meat and rice or bread.  I super love it.  It is a dream come true.  My whole life I've wanted to go somewhere where I could just eat bread all the time.  Who would've thought it would be my mission to eat bread alot. 

In answer to the many questions asking if I have gotten fat, the answer is you will have to wait 2 years and see. Our new house is awesome.   It has a big garage under it so it is up on stilts, so the wind blows through it real nice and it is always a nice temperature.   But the sad thing about the wind is that there are no mosquitoes.  I was really enjoying killing mosquitoes every morning and night.  The shower has this box next to it and it is a heater thing that we have to light with a match to heat hot water.   It is awesome.  I literally can't complain about anything now because our other house had no hot water. 

I can pretty much understand everyone now except for when old guys speak Tahitian they like to speak really fast and during sacrament meeting I can't concentrate for that long, but I couldn't do that at home either so no surprise there.   Speaking of sacrament meeting, in our first ward this Sunday they surprised us by asking us to bear our testimonies because one of the speakers didn't show up and the theme was missionary work;  after that they surprised us by asking us to sing with some other guys a song in front of everyone, so that was also awesome.  In our other sacrament meeting there is a lady who sings as loud as she can and it is deafening.  I have never heard anyone screetch as enthusiasticly as she does.  Me and Elder Punu can never sing because we are always laughing too hard.  


We have a new investigator from France and he is incredible.  His name is Christopher and he knows nothing about the Bible, but he is incredibly smart and quickly accepts the doctrine.   Towards the end of Elder Punu talking about prophets,  Elder Punu asked Chrstopher if he had any questions and Christopher said, "Yea, just one.  Who is our prophet today?"  That was awesome.  Elder Punu said, "It seems like you have understood this concept well!"  and laughed a little bit and we talked about Thomas S. Monson.

One quick last story before I finish.  In our new house, there were 2 huge cockroaches on our rafter things and Elder Punu wantd to take a picture, so we decided to take a picture that made it look like I was licking them.  When the camera flashed,  a cockroach from somewhere else got offended and attacked me and flew into my mouth and then crawled down my tie.   I almost died.

  One last request:  If you could send me some cool Texas stuff that would be great!  My Tahitians would love it!


By the way, I just looked at Mom's blog and the boardwalk she has a picture of is the exact boardwalk that we ride down every day if you want a visual.

Love,
Elder Cosby

PRUNING BANANA TREES/TEACHING BY CANDLELIGHT: June 9, 2010

Dear Family,
Everything is going good.  This morning we cleaned our house super good (I don't think that the house had ever been cleaned before), and pruned our banana trees.   Elder Villierm used a machete; Elder Punu had a butcher knife;  I was using a tiny knife (I dont know what to call it.)   After we finished cleaning everything, me and Elder Punu found out that we will be moving to a new house for some reason.  So now Elder Villierm and Elder Crump will have a super clean, 3 bedroom house with living room thing and kitchen and bathroom all to themselves.  We went to go see our new house with some guy that works with President Smith and it has brand new floors and a brand new washer and fridge.  It's pretty cool.  Also the shower is incredibly huge.  You could fit probably 16 people in it.  When I get home we should get a shower like that so we can all hang out in it. 

Last Friday, we taught a lesson to my favorite family that has no lights in their house (so we do everything with candles.)   Afterwards, they fed us pies. After 3 pieces of pie and some chocolate crussant things i was just about full from the end of me to my adams apple, but they insisted that I continue to eat.  Usually when I say I'm full people continue to insist,  so I had to keep telling them, "No, really, I can't."  But for some reason they really wanted me to eat, so I ate a third of the next piece and was almost dead.   Then we had a dinner appointment right after, but luckily the family cancelled and just dropped the food off at our house.   I have never been so thankful in my life.  


I have been having problems with mosquitos, so I bought a mosquito racket thing. and since then I've only gotten bit a few times.  I've been keeping track of the mosquitos I kill and I've killed 296. 

  


Also, if you are struggling to think of things you might want to send me for special or not special occasions, here are some awesome ideas:  I need some more grill mate steak seasoning. a lot of goldfish. ties, and black socks. Love Y'all!
Love,   Elder Cosby